Jefferson Appoints Irwin B. Levitan, Ph.D., to Lead New Department of Neuroscience
Irwin B. Levitan, Ph.D. has been named Founding Chair of the newly created Department of Neuroscience at Jefferson Medical
College of Thomas Jefferson University. He has also been appointed director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences. His appointment is effective January 1, 2010.
“With
his recruitment, Jefferson further strengthens its position as a center
of undisputed excellence in basic, translational and clinical
neuroscience research,” said Mark Tykocinski, M.D., dean, Jefferson
Medical College. “I am delighted that he has agreed to take on this
pivotal role.”
As
chair of the Department of Neuroscience, Dr. Levitan will assemble a
world-class group of neuroscientists to complement Jefferson’s
established group of researchers in Neurology and Neurological
Surgery. As director of the Farber Institute, he will further the
institute's mission of research into the causes, prevention and
treatment of neurological disorders and disease.
Prior
to joining Jefferson, Dr. Levitan served as the David Mahoney Professor
and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of
Pennsylvania's School of Medicine. In addition, he was Director of
Penn's campus-wide Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences.
Dr.
Levitan received his undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in
Biochemistry from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. After
postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and
the University of California at San Diego, he was a group leader at the
Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel, Switzerland where he began
investigations of the regulation of neuronal excitability in the marine
mollusc Aplysia. He continued these studies after moving to the
Department of Biochemistry at Brandeis University in Waltham,
Massachusetts where he was Professor of Biochemistry and founding
Director of the Volen Center for Complex Systems. While at Brandeis he
began investigating the modulation of ion channel proteins, using a
combination of molecular and biophysical approaches. More recently he
has been pursuing the concept that ion channels do not function on
their own in the plasma membrane, but rather exist and function as part
of multi-protein signaling complexes.
Dr.
Levitan is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including two
successive National Institutes of Health Jacob Javits Neuroscience
Investigator Awards; and two awards from the McKnight Endowment Fund
for Neuroscience. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, and has played a number of prominent leadership
roles in the 38,000-member Society for Neuroscience. He recently was
elected President of the Association of American Medical School
Neuroscience Department Chairs, a position he will assume in March
2010. He has been senior editor forNeuroscience for the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, and a reviewing editor for the Journal of Neuroscience. In addition Dr. Levitan is co-editor of Ion Channels and Receptors, and Neuropharmacology: Potassium Channels. He is the co-author of Neuromodulation: The Biochemical Control of Neuronal Excitability, and also is co-author of a widely-used textbook, The Neuron: Cell and Molecular Biology.
Media Only Contact:
Ed Federico
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
Phone: (215) 955-6300
Published: 12/9/2009